AB1178 THE COMPARISON OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS OF RECOVERED COVID-19 PATIENTS WITH HEALTHY CONTROLS
Authors: C. Cakir, Y. Ulus, A. Bilgici
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2022)

Background The epidemiological and clinical features of COVID-19 patients are currently well characterized. However the subacute and long-term effects of COVID-19 are not clear. Cognitive disturbance is one of the residual effects of COVID-19 infection besides fatigue, dyspnea, chest pain, arthralgia, and decline in quality of life. It has been stated that patients with COVID-19 may have cognitive dysfunction, but it still remains unknown whether the COVID-19 infection is associated with cognitive impairment. Objectives The aims of this study were to compare the executive functions of recovered COVID-19 patients with healthy controls, and to evaluate the relation of the executive functions with sleep quality, emotional status, disease severity, and post COVID-19 duration in these patients. Methods Twenty-five patients aged 18-60 with a previous diagnosis of COVID-19 infection and 25 gender-age matched healthy individuals as a control group participated this study. The executive functions of participants were evaluated by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST), Stroop Test-TBAG Form, and N-back test. Data on sleep quality by Pittsburgh Sleep Quality-Index (PSQI), depression by Beck Depression-Inventory (BDI), anxiety by Worry and Anxiety Questionnaire were collected in all participants. In patients, disease severity, COVID symptoms, and post-covid duration were noted. Data were analyzed by SPSS using Kolmogorov Smirnov test, chi-square test, Student-t test, and Pearson correlation analysis. Results In terms of WCST; patients’ number of trials administered, total errors, and nonperseverative-errors scores were statistically higher; categories achieved and percentage of conceptual-level responses scores were statistically lower than controls (p&lt;0.05). Patients’ N-back test scores were statistically lower than controls (p=0.012). BDI, PSQI total, sleep quality, sleep latency, duration of sleep scores were significantly different in patients and controls (p&lt;0.05). Patients were divided into three groups according to the severity of the disease and there was no significant difference between the three groups in terms of WCST, Stroop test, and N-back test (p&gt;0.05). There were negative correlations between WCST-total errors and duration of sleep, WCST-number of trials administered and sleep efficiency, Stroop-number of errors and total PSQI scores. No correlation was found between the executive functions and emotional status of the patients (p&gt;0.05). Conclusion According to the results of this study, executive functions may be effected in the patients recovered from COVID-19. After COVID-19 infection patients may have sleep problems, and executive dysfunctions may be correlated with sleep disorders in these patients. Since the executive functions were not associated with clinical findings of COVID-19 infection in this study, we suggest that it is not predicted in which patients executive functions will be impaired. Regardless of the COVID-19 infection severity, executive functions should be considered in the follow-up of these patients. References [1]Zhou H, Lu S, Chen J, et al. The landscape of cognitive function in recovered COVID-19 patients. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 2020;129: 98-102. [2]Varatharaj A, Thomas N, Ellul MA et al. Neurological and neuropsychiatric complications of COVID-19 in 153 patients: a UK-wide surveillance study. The Lancet Psychiatry.2020;7(10): 875-82. [3]Huang C, Wang Y, Li X et al. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Lancet 2020; 395: 497-506. Disclosure of Interests None declared